For reasons I don't quite understand, I can't edit the
"product description" of
the Kindle edition of A STEP FARTHER OUT, but it's up and doing very
well, having -- briefly I am sure -- become the #1 best seller on Kindle's
economic policy sales list. The product description isn't an integral part
of the book of course, but it does have a typo. I also need to add that the
book is over 100,000 words, and there are illustrations and figures, so it's
a fair chunk of reading for a few bucks. I am told it looks good on the
Kindle App for an iPhone and I know it's readable on the Kindle App for
iPad.

Now I am working on getting ANOTHER STEP FARTHER OUT in
shape for Kindle publication. That is a new publication built out of columns
and essays beginning in 1980 and continuing nearly to present. With luck
we'll have that one in about a week. I'm also looking to see what else I can
mine for low priced Kindle books.

============

Gold and silver prices are up again. There's a fairly
cool-headed analysis in the International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/
137709/20110425/gold-silver-prices
-inflation-bubble.htm that's worth your reading; do understand that
there's no industrial justification for the prices gold and silver have
climbed to. To some extent the price of gold depends on the price of oil,
and of course the price of the dollar. Don't bet the farm on gold, but if
there's a real runaway inflation, having physical possession of gold and
silver is one hedge. Note that wheat futures are up around $8 a bushel,
which is quite a lot compared to the $3 wheat of last spring. Wheat prices
depend on consumption and production. Unlike oil, wheat production depends
on a number of factors like drought and climate (as well as oil prices which
affect fertilizer and transportation costs) more than on political decisions
such as the US decisions on oil production in Iraq and the OPEC production
schedules. Speculation oil prices -- futures -- are driven by expectations.
An OPEC announcement of greatly increased production would drive spot oil
prices down dramatically, as history has shown -- note that Reagan's
announcement of increased drilling, which had no immediate effect on oil
production, drive down gas prices at the pump within weeks.

It's not so clear about food prices. Note that demand for
wheat is rising in China and will slowly but steadily rise as long as the
Chinese economic boom continues. As Chinese wealth trickles down, more
Chinese want meat, and that increases demand for animal feed and --
All the same for India. So long as China, and increasingly India, have
growing middle clases who want higher quality foods, the demands for wheat
will grow. Meanwhile Arab Spring brings economic collapse in Egypt and other
Middle East areas, but doesn't much lower food requirements for those
populations. The oil kingdoms will simply bid against the Chinese. Egypt,
the largest and hungriest of the Arab lands, can't do that. Economic freedom
can produce economic booms, but that doesn't happen immediately, and isn't
all that likely an outcome of the Arab Spring movements anyway.

The US could have some effect on food price futures by
ending the alcohol as fuel subsidies and requirements. If you don't burn
coal in your car, the price of masa will fall almost immediately.

We have an election coming up. We also have $5/gallon
gasoline and $5/loaf bread coming up. I do not expect the real unemployment
rate to fall, although there will be frantic attempts to make it look lower,
largely through statistical manipulations based on the definition of
unemployment: if you're not looking for work, you aren't unemployed even if
you have no job and never again expect to find one. As more give up looking,
the unemployment rate goes down. And since the unions do not intend to lower
their wages and perks, and the states are out of money, there will be
"furloughs" among public employees including teachers. You can manipulate
those numbers so the "furloughed" are not unemployed. It promises to be an
interesting summer, but it will end with $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf
bread. Look for the price of a can of beans to get higher. Look for the
price of Top Ramen to rise...

This will continue so long as the current economic and
foreign policies continue.

Note that I'm not giving advice on metals and food futures
investments. I'm just saying...

=================

We have now put drones directed at killing a head of state
into the Laws of War. I'm sure that wasn't the intention, but it seems
to me the effect of our using drones in Libya: shortly after there were
explosions in Qaddaffi's headquarters.

The prestige of the United States is on line. The President
has said that Kadhafi's continued presence as head of state in Libya is
unacceptable. We have meanwhile acted to be sure he will go all out to stay,
since his only possible alternative is life imprisonment. Sun Tze tells us
to build golden bridges for our enemies, but we have burned all of
Khadiffi's escape routes. He can't even take an airliner to Venezuela or
Uganda. He can't fly anywhere. He's stuck: for him it's victory or death or
life imprisonment and that will include all his children and most of his
friends. He still has gold, and as I noted earlier, he is hiring Taureg, the
blue people of the desert. Tribal warfare continues. And the United States
continues to borrow money to pour into Libya, but not to do anything
decisive.

The Arab Spring continues.

members of the UN Security Council are
considering a statement being circulated by a British-led group of
European countries, which condemned the killing of hundreds of Syrian
protesters.

The statement, which was proposed with France,
Germany and Portugal, called for an immediate restraint, an end to the
state of emergency, and an independent investigation into the civilian
deaths. It could be released on Tuesday if approved by China and Russia,
a western diplomat at the UN said.

The diplomat said the measure was aimed at
"putting Syria on notice" that the Security Council was closely
monitoring developments. "There may be talk of sanctions," the diplomat
said. "At present the focus is on releasing as strong a statement as is
possible and securing the reforms that Syria has promised".

The diplomat's comments came as the United
States threatened to impose sanctions on Mr Assad and his henchmen in a
significant policy shift.

"A rumor is floating around the physics community
that the world's largest atom smasher may have detected a long-sought
subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, also known as the "God
particle."

Petronius

We'll just have to see. I heard last night on Coast to
Coast from an engineer who says (1) that he's the only one in the world who
understands gravity, and (2) there are no particles. If he's right
then they can't have found it. If they've found it, boy is he wrong...

In case that's being too mysterious, what I mean is that
when it gets to particle physics, I used to know some of the geniuses in
that area pretty well, I have had Twistors explained to me by Penrose, and
I've watched as String Theory gets more convoluted, and I anxiously await
new results. My expectation is that this won't be unambiguous.

For platinum subscription:

Platinum subscribers enable me to work on what I think is important
without worrying about economics. My thanks to all of you.

We have medical appointments for the rest of the day, so this will be
brief. I'll be back this evening.

If you want to see an amazing article, see "Safety First" or "How Safe is
San Onofre?" (link)
by Najmedin Meshkati in today's Los Angeles Times. The thrust of this
editorial is that there's something mysteriously wrong at San Onofre; but
you will read the article in vain if you are trying to find out what.
It appears that there is something deficient about the "safety culture" as
envisioned by Najmedin Meshkati, and to prove it, he cites:

Sept. 1, 2010: The NRC advised San Onofre of a
substantive issue that potentially affects several safety-critical areas
concerning human performance — such as human error prevention techniques,
decision-making and work practices — where it has found "a continuing high
number of findings." This was the seventh consecutive assessment period
during which the issue, which deals with major safety culture components,
was raised.

March 4, 2011: The NRC reported that "corrective actions to date have not
resulted in sustained and measurable improvement" in the above-mentioned
human performance issues.

The above citations may be just the tip of the iceberg. According to a
recently released, exhaustive study of nuclear power plant safety in the
United States by the Union of Concerned Scientists, "the NRC only audits
about 5% of activities at a nuclear reactor each year. Thus each safety
violation they identify could represent another 19 violations in the 95% not
looked at. But the NRC only requires plant owners to fix the identified
violations."

In other words, they aren't doing things the way that the
intellectuals, who don't themselves have much experience at operating power
plants, want them to be done. There don't seem to be actual safety
incidents, or rule violations, or anything of that sort; but the "safety
culture" as envisioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists and others of
that sort is deficient.

Now perhaps it is. I have not been to San Onofre in a dozen
years, and perhaps things have degenerated there. Perhaps the Iron Law has
taken over, and the whole place is a disaster waiting to happen. Perhaps. It
certainly wasn't like that the last time I looked into it, but that was long
ago.

What I do know is that the plant could disappear from the
face of the Earth and the fact that it once existed would still make it
unsatisfactory to the Union of Concerned Scientists, because, well, because
it was nucular and don't you forget it! And it was like Chernobyl, which
Dr. Meshkati has visited and which scared the devil out of him.

Meshkati says:

I have been closely following
nuclear safety issues at the San Onofre plant, and I spoke on the matter at
a 2009 NRC public meeting on San Onofre. Based on the public domain reports
that I have reviewed, I believe that although there are some discrete token
improvements, the overall situation at the plant has been continuously
deteriorating.

Alas, he doesn't tell us what it is that makes him so
certain of this deterioration. He doesn't cite the public domain reports
that scare him. Indeed, the only evidence I can find is

Feb. 1-10, 2010: The NRC conducted focus
group interviews with about 400 workers to probe the safety culture at the
plant, and the results indicated "a continued degradation in the
safety-conscious work environment."

So a focus group of plant workers didn't satisfy the
interviewers. Their culture is deficient.

Perhaps so. Perhaps
so. But I have never seen a more vague indictment; and in looking for the
San Onofre safety record I find dozens, hundreds of articles about "safety
culture" but few actual incidents of safety problems. I find that the Union
of Concerned Scientists has been concerned about San Onofre for a long time,
and periodically warns the world of impending disasters. I am sure there is
some basis for all this other than general opposition to nuclear power, but
I'm not smart enough to find it: it's all drowned out in media reports about
"safety culture" whatever that is.

I'd have more but I keep
getting interrupted and time is short. If you find some actual incidents at
San Onofre please let me know.

Digging about in my older
stuff looking for something else, I came across this. It still seems
appropriate. It's from my old Intellectual Capital columns, and was written
well before 9/11/2011...
Breaking Things and
Killing People.

Which leaves only the question of why the heck didn't this happen two
years ago? The question was moot from the day he was inaugurated.

We may now be amused by the coming storms over who won what in this
latest round. Perhaps there ought to be a pool on just how long it will go
on, except that the likelihood is that it will never end. Can we now get
on with the most open administration in the history of the nation?

===========

Checking for myself

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I downloaded the Barack Hussein Obama, II long form
birth certificate .pdf file directly from whitehouse.gov. I opened it in
Illustrator. Released the clipping mask. Yes, there are multiple layers.
The lines of the form are not the same layer as the captions of the form.
Individual letters in names and words are in separate layers from the rest
of the name or word (i.e., 'K' in Kenya, 'S' in Stanley, 'R' in BARACK,
and many more). It sure looks like it has been assembled from multiple
elements. I can not think of an innocent reason for these facts. I also
find it hard to understand how and why, if it's a forgery, it's such a
clumsy forgery. Am I missing some reasonable technical explanation for
these issues?

The file has also been scrubbed clean of most meta
data. It was created on a Mac using OS X 10.6.7, but I don't see anything
else useful.

Greg Hemsath

I have no idea here. There was a time when I could legitimately claim
to be well versed in the uses of high technology for various purposes, but
it's been a while since I did that sort of thing: I have to rely on
advisors and experts. At least I understand what they tell me, even if I
don't spend so much time doing silly things so you don't have to.

I would have thought that the simplest solution to all this would be a
photograph of the original document. Presumably a release on the web would
require digitization, but that's a simple scan, or even a digital
photograph. I know there are some problems with pdf software, but surely
the simplest processes would not produce a complex multi-layered document.
I can conceive of too clever by half "plots" to make things complex and
thus suck more people into arguing over moot points, but I can't think
that even the kids who hang around in the White House are not above that sort
of nonsense.

Ye flipping gods. Barrack Obama was born before Macs existed. Clearly
the source of this was some document that existed prior to the Mac.
The notion is to get this silly discussion out of the news and let us get
to something important? Of course a computer had to be be used to produce
a pdf copy -- pdf didn't exist in the days that the document was created
-- but release of a pdf isn't the release of the original document.
Perhaps we've just got the story wrong, and the original is on display for
examination by qualified journalists in Honolulu. Surely this is just
another silliness brought about by the modern "journalism", yet another
reason I don't like to get involved in breaking stories. Surely it
will all come out in the wash, and someone will produce an undoctored,
non-layered, certified copy of the original document and we can all get on
with more important matters. We have many experts on these matters in this
readership and I'll wait to hear from them. Until then I assume that this
was a release in good faith, and the original will be available in
Honolulu, where someone is photocopying it even as I write this.

==========

Targets and Terrorism

Breaking Things and Killing People

A Canadian general, acting for NATO, presumably approved as legitimate
targets: a civilian government building in Tripoli, said to be one of the
residences of the Chief of State of Libya; and the national television
station of Libya, also in Tripoli and also a civilian building.

I would presume that if attacks on such structures were taken by any
national government against any other country, or by a civilian rebel
group within a country, the presumption would be that this is an act of
terrorism. Perhaps I am just too dense to understand?

The mission of NATO is to protect Libyan civilians against the
government of Libya. It is explicitly not regime change nor the killing of
Qadafi. Presumably, then, attacking Ghaddaffi's bedroom is an action in
aid of saving civilians from the Wrath of Kadafi, as is blowing up the
national television station, even though those actions taken by anyone
else would be acts of terrorism?

We are breaking things and killing people in aid of a policy of saving
Libyan civilians from being killed by Libyan government agents (presumably
both military and civilian). Since our policy is essentially no different
from battleships standing offshore out of range of shore based batteries
and bombarding harbor areas and government palaces -- a practice used at
various times by Great Powers against upstart regimes who had offended the
Powers -- we may need to examine just what are our doctrines of Just War.

Of course the serious question is, what is our objective here? We have
seen to it that Gadaffi has no place to go. There is no offer on the
table. He has his choice of taking to a spider hole until he is discovered
and hanged, or of fighting on to the last mercenary (or the last sack of
gold, whichever comes first); he is betting his life that his will to live
is stronger than NATO's will to kill him, and his stamina is greater than
that of NATO and the US. He can continue to pay mercenaries -- or the
salaries of his regular army and his police and security forces -- for
longer than NATO can continue to borrow money to spend on killing him.

It's not all that dangerous for the NATO troops including the sharp
edges. We'll eventually lose an air crew, and possible more -- air/sea
operations are dangerous even when there is no active enemy -- but the
loss rate won't be as great as it is in Afghanistan, and the costs are
lower than Afghanistan. This can go on for a long time. Think of it as
life training operations? But surely we have some other objective in mind?

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the Mamelukes continue to consolidate their
power. Things are a bit better for the Arab in the street, but food prices
continues higher -- in the United States they are up 2% in 4 months as
seen in the grocery stores, and the price rises are higher in the Middle
East. The Moslem Brotherhood has pledged to run no more than 30% of the
seats in Parliament. A deal is clearly in the offing.

In Syria the riots continue. Arab Spring isn't over yet. Do we have a
policy?

==================

Scanned Birth Certificate

Dr. Pournelle,

The artifacts discovered by another of your
correspondents in the electronic copy of the President's birth certificate
are common in documents scanned as images and converted to pdf, especially
using older or cheap scanners. This is often the practice in many
government agencies, as well as being similar to what frequently occurs in
the use of home-office scanners. I don't consider the artifacts alone
either as data for the authentication of the document, nor as proof that
it is counterfeit.

I applaud the attempt, though. Would that the same
amount of effort been given to creditable forensic analysis of the younger
Bush's alleged military documents before they were broadcast as authentic.

-d

Ah. I suspected as much. Now, surely, the original will be made
available, and this nonsense will end.

============

I still see no signs of the release of the original document. I have
seen a Mac produced pdf of a scan of a photograph of the document. Perhaps
that is all that is needed, but why not simply make the document itself
available and be done with it? Is this a game?

As someone reasonably familiar with computer
security issues, I am disturbed by the case of the unsecured wireless
router - and by the obvious suggestion that all wireless networks should
be secured.

In this specific case, the family was cleared of
downloading illegal material. The fact that their router was unsecured led
to the easy explanation that someone else had accessed it. But what if
they had secured their router, and someone had used it anyway? This is not
difficult; people choose poor passwords, write their passwords down, type
their passwords in front of strangers, tell their passwords to friends -
passwords are broken all the time.

So I wonder: if this gentleman had successfully
secured his router, and it had been used to download illegal material
anyway - would he have been let off with an apology? Or would he still be
in jail, with the "security" of his router as proof?

I believe that there is a fundamental legal problem
here: It should not be illegal to obtain or possess information of any
kind. Distribution may be illegal, but never reception or possession.

Where child pornography is concerned, rational
discussion is almost impossible, so consider this in a different context:
Wikileaks. The government was quite upset that classified documents were
suddenly in the public domain. Should the government be able to arrest and
prosecute every individual who accessed and read the Wikileaks releases? I
hope most people will agree that this is would be not only impractical but
also just plain wrong.

As a closing note: computer forensics work is not
always handled professionally. Just look at the case at hand: the first
thing the agents did was sit down and use his computer for two hours. Who
knows what they did? Without assigning any ill-intent at all, the very act
of using his computer means that they changed it. And if you do want to
assign ill-intent: how quickly one could plant evidence; how impossible
for the accused to prove that the evidence was planted.

Cheers

Brad

All important points. I am reminded of a case I studied,
perhaps when an undergraduate, perhaps when I was teaching Constitutional
Law: Federal authorities suspected a high school janitor of some heinous
crime, but had insufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant. A postal
inspector was induced to send the suspect a registered letter containing
child pornography. An agent was then able to testify to a judge that he had
good reason to believe that they would find child pornography and other
incriminating materials in the man's house. A warrant was issued.
Incriminating materials were found, some in plain sight. The porn sent in by
the postal inspector was ignored, but the man was charged with possession of
the other stuff. The question was, was this a legitimate search? It
was paired with another in which a warrant specified a search for drugs in
the trunk of a car, but what was discovered was a dead body,

It is all complicated by the ease with which truly damning
evidence may be planted in full view of other detectives and investigators
without anything suspicious being done. If I have a thumb drive -- one of
two identical thumb drives -- which contains my hacking tool kit for getting
into a suspect's laptop, it would be no great trick at all to let someone
witness my entry into the suspect's computer, then during the examination,
exchange for a thumb drive that has the tool kit and a kiddieporn file,
transfer the file, and remove the thumb drive. Other similar scenarios come
to mind. Of course no police officer would ever plant evidence, just as no
police officer would ever abuse an innocent man in the heat of the moment,
realize his mistake, and work to justify his behavior by getting the suspect
to confess to something. And I have an unusual real estate offer just for
you.

Incidentally, were I using someone else's network to
download illicit files, would I be tempted to put one or another of those
files on a computer in the penetrated network, just in case, so if the
downloads were discovered they'd lead to the victim's network, not to me
sitting next door?

Here is a case in which Federal agents so abused an innocent
man that the Attorney General felt required to issue an apology. I doubt
this is a political case in the sense that the agents involved are part of a
particular Administration. It is a case for the Executive Authority of the
United States acting for the good of the nation without regard to politics,
but I suspect there isn't much of that any more.

As my correspondent notes, the problem is the nature of the
crime: possession of information. In national security matters there is the
real problem of possession and transmission of classified material, but
there are no national security issues here even if the powers of Homeland
Security largely derive from the Patriot Act. The justification for the
Kiddie Porn laws is similar to the laws on the possession of ivory: the
purpose is the protection of elephants from poachers. If they can't sell the
ivory, and no one can own it, then it's not worth killing the elephant to
get it. Whether any child was ever protected from an abuser by forbidding
the possession of recordings of the acts of abuse can be debated; it's even
less clear that any child was ever protected by forbidding the possession of
cartoons and manga drawings of child sex acts.

This is not a long way from thoughtcrime. It is a difficult
subject to debate because emotions run high; but perhaps it is time that
debate took place.

This is a disturbing case, and I do not think that
discussion should end with an apology from the Attorney General.

My morning paper tells me that
a "NATO" air strike killed 12 rebels in Libya. I haven't found an
announcement of what aircraft were involved, or where they are based, or
whether this is more Nevada-piloted drone activity. The war in Libya seems
to be focused now on Misurata.

There's a sideshow of side attacks on Qadaffi's palace.
Those latter have been condemned by the African Union. It's a sidesho
because unless they manage to assassinate Qaddaffi they aren't going to be
decisive. Off shore bombardment of palaces was a favorite tactic in the days
of gunboat diplomacy, but in those days the objective was to bend the target
sovereign's will and get acceptance of some Great Power demand, usually
involving collecting money, sometimes involving kidnapping of citizens as in
this government expects Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead. In this case the
sovereign can't accept the demand that he step down because he and all his
family are pretty well doomed to life imprisonment by the UN if he
surrenders. He may as well fight on. Do note that he has supporters among
the Libyan population. Some are nationalists who see this "rebellion" as the
restoration of colonial rule, and some are Qadaffi clansmen who see it as a
family feud.

Misurata is important mostly because it is the only important place west
of Marble Arch -- the division line between the provinces of Tripolitania
and Cyrenicia -- still held by rebels. If Misurata falls to Khaddafi,
there is no rational reason to continue the civil war: let Cyrenicia become
a new and independent republic and end the war. A lot of Libyans would
settle for that. A lot more wouldn't, because most of the oil is west of
Marble Arch, but fighting for who gets the oil isn't all that popular in the
United States. Meanwhile we fight on, breaking things and killing people in
the name of saving the civilian population of Libya from its government.

I also found a link to this
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=50347
which is a picture of the great cyclone in the South. I recall when growing
up in Memphis that there were tornadoes in Mississippi, one so severe that
injured were brought into Memphis by railroad on flat cars, and soldiers
were called out to guard devastated towns from looters. Power is out across
much of the South. I have eMail from a friend who found an open MacDonald's
with Wi-Fi in northern Alabama. In some areas the only communications are
through ham radio.

The fuel for the more intense storms would be
the predicted warming of the Earth caused by the burning of fossil fuels
that release greenhouse gases.

Of course global warming was to cause more droughts in
Australia, then when there were floods those too were attributed to climate
change. When one examines the global warming data the connections are a bit
less clear, since we are dealing with fractions of a degree in average
temperatures over wide areas. I don't expect that to have much impact. I
haven't yet heard the President claim that we need more Green Energy to stop
this widespread destruction, but I won't be astonished when that happens.

It gives the arguments about as well as any other does.
Believers will continue to insist that the tornadoes are due to CO2 and
global warming. Deniers will insist they are not. Skeptics like me remember
we had tornadoes when I was young and no one knew much about CO2. And some
will point out that there may be better ways to reduce CO2 than to dismantle
the economy.

====

Sable has decided to come up to my office and howl
piteously. It's way past time for a walk, and she wants me to know. Back
later.

Your tax dollars at work, a federal sting comes to a
dramatic conclusion with a lawsuit against an Amish farmer and the seizure
(undercover purchase) of illegally trafficked goods, dangerous quantities
of fresh milk (probably a quart or two, in *gasp* glass bottles!). Thank
god we’re all being protected from Amish folks selling milk to what may
turn out to be dozens of customers in one little town.

Maybe that FDA office needs downsizing, if this is
on top of their to-do list. Sounds like a perfect place to trim a little
excess govt. People eat all sorts of strange things… Why does the FDA feel
the need to waste this much of our federal budget persecuting people who
like unpasteurized milk? On the necessity/luxury scale of things we need
to spend our already insufficient tax dollars on, this doesn’t even
register on the gauge. Why haven’t these people been fired yet?

Write your congressman and ask why these feds
wasting valuable tax dollars have not been fired yet, for such a clear
case of fraud waste and abuse. It’s YOUR taxes they wasted on a purely
local problem, and if this particular farmer was in fact making people
sick, I’m sure the local sheriff could have dealt with it in his spare
time. Fraud, waste, and abuse, plain and simple. Most people willfully
wasting this much govt money go to jail when they’re caught. Well, we
caught some FDA folks wasting a whole bunch of money on a purely local
issue, so…

Sean

Which gives me an idea for a project for those who have time: Government
We Can Do Without Just Now

Specific people and offices doing things that perhaps need doing if we
are rich, but which we can all pretty well agree are not necessary in an era
of borrowed money. The more specific the better: a particular office, and
even particular employees, doing things that it is pretty clear we don't
need to be borrowing money to do.

.In the interests of protecting the civilians
of Libya from the Libyan government, NATO air strikes have killed the
youngest son and three grandchildren of Col. Qadaffi, the Libyan Chief of
State and Chief of Government. This is said to be in accord with the UN
mission of protecting Libyan civilians without going so far as to bring
about a regimes changel regime change is not an authorized objective under
the UN resolution.

Qadaffi was said to have offered a partition of the country, probably
along provincial lines with Tripolotania beoming Libya with its capital in
Tripoli, and the border at Marble Arch, the tradition division point between
Tripolotainaia and Cyrenecia. to the east, with capital in Benghazi.
The Colonel has been rejected as not serious, but he seems serious enough in
his offer.

In the traditional laws of war and International Rules of conflict,
direct actions against civilian officials is not a usual rule of engagement,
German and Japanese bombing of open cities and financial areas within cities
was condemned. The Germans were condemned for the bombing of Rotterdam in
1940.

The Obama administration has not announced its objectives in Libya. The
mission given by the UN resolution is to protect Libyan civilians from
slaughter. It is hard to see the direct effect of attacks on the civilian
family homes of Gadaffi's children and grand children as a means of saving
civilian lives, unless your hope is the death of the Colonel himself.

The effect of this action on Ghaddaffi's will to hang on to power is not
predictable : it could go either way, With less to lose why not fight? or
with less to live for, why fight? I doubt that anyone knows him that
well.

I trust that the mission planners understand that they have made
legitimate targets of war out of the families of the drone controllers at
Chreech, most of who commute to Las Vegas, and many of whom have had their
names and faces published in the papers. They directed the fire that killed
the Colonels grandchildren; in a civilized society that accepted the laws of
war as they have developed since Grotius that would not matter; but the
culture of the Libyan tribesman does not follow that tradition. Bloods feud
and weregeld are more traditional there. I trust that the Homeland
Security authorities are aware of this.

As to what this will accomplish I have not yet discerned. It will make
Khaddafi take greater pains for the security of himself and his family, but
surely given him even less incentive to surrender.

Today's e-mail update comes from the site of the
opening scene in Taylor and Ringo's novel Von Neumann's War, which is:

(a) as far as I know, the only restaurant open in
Huntsville; (b) the first place to open in Huntsville with wi-fi, and, (c)
the first place I've seen in three days with sufficient outlets for all
persons trying to get online there. (Imagine the nearest open Starbucks,
in Athens...)

I'm pleased to report that the Huntsville Hooter's
waitresses (knowing that most of you probably didn't get the joke) are
helpful to someone who only graces their establishment for internet access
in the emergency, and that the food has been decent. Or is graced by - one
of those; Travis Taylor was quick to emphasize that the waitress who
served his hapless heroes in the novel was an astrophysics graduate
student (who later married one of them).

In any event, we persist. Thursday and yesterday
were spent dealing with the mundane details of eating, fueling up,
laundry, and trying to access the internet when power is out over a 500+
square mile area (lessons learned for future studies of EMP) due to damage
to the outgoing high tension lines at Browns Ferry. TVA hopes to have
those restored to Huntsville/Madison Co by Monday, though it's not certain
that local service in our area will be back by then (plus, when it does
come back...whether internet will be immediately accessible from home is
uncertain). I did get in a six hour stint assisting the Limestone Co.
response with the State Defense Force, though the nature of the emergency
is such that they need strong bodies rather than strong minds (since I
don't really qualify for either....) I'm not sure how much more help I'll
be for the emergency.

My son has fallen into a routine of lunch on campus
(provided by the university to all students for free) and evening playing
board games with his cronies on campus or at off-campus houses with
cookouts. The announcement at noon that the University has suspended
finals leaves him cautiously optimistic that his semester is over (if he
needs to improve grades, he can take an incomplete and coordinate with the
instructor to retake or replace the final when power is back).

I will be out of town on personal business next week
so updates may remain spotty. But the bottom line is, we have survived
much better than many. The devastation of the EF-4 from Tanner to Anderson
Hills is heartrending. Please keep North Alabama in your prayers.

Take care all, be safe.

Jim

Hang in there. God bless you.

=============

The humanitarian bombing of Libya by NATO -- probably meaning US forces
-- continues. There was celebration in Benghazi. Now there is skepticism
over who was killed and when and by whom. I don't see the teddy bears yet.

Now the opposition in Benghazi now says no one was killed. The Libyan
government consists that Qadaffi's youngest son and some young grandchildren
were killed. Of course the Benghazi government announced that Saif al-arab
Qaddafi, who commended an elite and well equipped brigade in the Benghazi
area, had defected with his troops to the rebel movement. Nothing seems to
have come of that, but some modern equipment appeared in rebel hands. Since
Khadafi had pre-positioned ammunition and some forces in Cyrenicia, and
those storehouses fell to the rebels, so that was inevitable. The rumor of
Saif's defection died slowly away, but I have been unable to find any
confirmed appearances of Saif either among the rebels nor anywhere in
Tripolotania, nor do there seem to be many references to the elite brigade
which he supposedly commanded and which supposedly defected with him.

In other words, he may have been dead for weeks; he may have defected and
been interrogated to death; he may have defected and has been kept in safe
houses; he may never have defected, and have been part of Gadaffi's general
staff; or -- well, you can make up your own story. There doesn't seem to be
a lot of evidence. Libyan spokespeople showed a shrouded dead body, but
without identification -- indeed from what was shown there is not definitive
evidence that it was a human body at all. The bottom line is that no one can
say with certainty what is going on. One possible hypothesis: Saif was
killed in early fighting, possibly in a way that makes certain
identification impossible, and Qaddafi is using this opportunity.

NATO has made big promises but isn't accomplishing much. If they really
want to take out Ghaddaffi, it would take a full coordinated strike on a
number of his palaces and headquarters done all at once, each considerably
more vigorous than whatever happened last night. In other words, it would
take determination and a cull operation. In military operations,
"efficiency" and "surgical strike" are not goals. In general, in a military
operation, if it requires a company you send a regiment and if possible a
division, the point being that defeat takes place in the minds of the
enemy's troops: they are defeated when they think they are defeated, and
visibly overwhelming force is the best way to convince troops that they are
defeated. Troops seldom fight to the last man. It has happened. We have
tales from classical times -- see Xenophon, or accounts of Alexander the
Great, or the Roman war ending at Masada -- but it's not the usual ending of
a battle or a war. The usual end of a battle comes when the loser is
convinced that he has lost.

Troops do not become convinced that they have lost until they are certain
the the enemy intends to win.

NATO has so far done little to convince Libyan loyalists that they have
no chance and it's time to quit. A

==========

Regarding attacks on the chief of state: the goal of the NATO
operation is supposed to be the protection of Libyan civilians from being
slaughtered by their government. The operational means is described as
establishing a no-fly zone, but includes air strikes by both manned aircraft
and drones. We are now testing just what can be accomplished through limited
air operations.

We may be there a while.

=============

What would it take to end the war in Libya? Decisive action that conveys
in no uncertain terms that the objective is to send Ghaddaffi into a spider
hole, and anyone who gets in the way is very much at risk. I don't see how
to accomplish that with no-fly zones and limited air operations. Could it be
done with a regiment of Marines and some helicopters? Possibly. And possibly
expensive. Do not forget Black Hawk Down. In general, decisive actions
are cheaper than long drawn out operations -- but failed attempts are more
expensive than both. Since we don't even know who we killed in the air
raids, it's hard to believe we know what opposition we actually face in
Tripoli, or what it would take to convince the Libyan Loyalists that they
are defeated.

============

I am forced to rethink my views on Grotius and the Laws of War and Peace;
just what do we mean by International Law in a world in which many of the
combatants do not belong to a nation, and many of the national participants
are declared no longer to be a nation? In which there is no sovereignty and
nations are not allowed to defend themselves against rebels?

Is anyone who denounces the government a legitimate belligerent entitled
to the protection of the Laws of War? If one rebel does not make a
rebellion, how many does it take? Is a large group occupying the public
square a legitimate government?

Easy enough questions to ask. Not so simple to answer. And what is
"realism" in these circumstances?

============

For those curious about African affairs, this 1994 Atlantic article
might have been written a few weeks ago, just before Ivory Coast collapsed.

"Who seeks to plant democracy in my country plows the sea." Simon
Bolivar, whose last words were "There have been three great fools in
history, Jesus Christ, Don Quixote, and I." Tonight on 60 Minutes we will
learn more about what burns in the hearts of rebels camped in public
squares. Perhaps I am unduly cynical. Or perhaps good government really is
rare, we would do better to apply our resources to developing our own assets
rather than to exporting our wisdom with missiles and smart bombs.

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